The Art of Watch Dogs Book Review

Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs made an impressive splash landing last week as it debuted at the top of the video game sales chart, and gave Ubisoft its fastest selling video game of all-time. While the game isn’t nearly as revolutionary as it first sounded, it’s still a great open-world title (review) set in an awesome digital version of Chicago complete with a fleshed out cast of characters and game world.

To help showcase how intricately detailed the world of Watch Dogs truly is Titan Books has put out a high-quality art book that highlights Ubisoft Montreal’s design choices alongside vibrant glossy art assets for the game. The book is wrapped in a hardcover and stands nearly 12-inches high with thick glossy pages that detail the four main aspects of Watch Dogs’ design: characters, the city, the digital underground, and finally the interconnectivity between the tree. There are over 144 pages packed full with luscious looking art assets from the game, and the notes on each page help to flesh out the world of Watch Dogs unlike any other product to come out for it.

The first chapter zeroes in on the characters of Watch Dogs, so not only does Aiden Pearce get a huge write up on his design, but so do the supporting cast of characters like Clara, T-Bone, Jordi, and the rest of the major players from the game’s campaign. Each character gets at least one full page dedicated to them with detailed notes from Ubisoft Montreal’s art directors. There’s no better way to learn about the characters of Watch Dogs before you play the game than this section in the Watch Dogs art book.

Chapter two shifts the focus to the game’s other major star, the city of Chicago and its outlying areas. Throughout this chapter each major location from the game is shown off and discussed in detail, and there are more than a few locations to take in. In fact, this chapter takes up a majority of the book, so if you greatly appreciated the city of Chicago in Watch Dogs you’ll surely enjoy learning more about its design direction from this book.

The Underground

The third chapter is my personal favorite as it deals with the underground hacker movement that has infected the city of Chicago in Watch Dogs. Throughout this chapter fans of the game can look at the amazing ASCII art created for the game to give it an authentic feel, as well as the various logos and graffiti paintings that make up the world’s factions and character. Many of the images you probably didn’t even see in the game because they’re secondary, but that’s what makes this chapter so enjoyable.

The final chapter ties everything together with a look at the technology that allows Aiden and the other hackers to infiltrate Chicago’s ctOS system and use it to their advantage. Here you’ll find details about Aiden’s technology and how he taps into the hardware that allows him to stealthily save the day.

The Art of Watch Dogs is without a doubt a must own collectible for fans of the game. For only $18.99 it’s a steal, and it will only liven up your game cave or coffee table reserved for geeky material. You can grab a copy now from Amazon if you like what you see, or you could try your luck with the giveaway below to win a free copy from EntertainmentBuddha.com.

The Art of Watch Dogs Book Giveaway

Review Statement: The author of this review received a copy of the book from the publisher for the purposes of this review.

Build Quality

95

Content

95

Illustrations

98

96

Hacking in gloss

The Art of Watch Dogs is another example of the high-quality art books that Titan Books puts out. It's big, sexy, and full of detailed information about Watch Dogs itself, and the design decisions the art directors at Ubisoft Montreal went with. It'll make for a great addition to any gamers library of art books.

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